2018 Smart Industry Conference: Day 2

Recognizing trends, honoring the trend-setters.

Day 2 of the 2018 Smart Industry Conference picked up where the opening day left off, with a deep dive into trending topics.

Jason Anderson, vice president of business line management with conference presenting sponsor Stratus Technologies, delivered “A Push Towards the Network Edge: A Stepwise Approach to Digital Transformation,” during which he detailed how prevalent (and growing) IoT devices are in the manufacturing space, and how trend this is helping to realize the benefits of edge computing.

During the following plenary session, Intel’s Faith McCreary and Irene Petrick explored how people, process and technology must come together to achieve comprehensive success in this digital era. “Transformation is not a luxury, it’s an imperative,” said Petrick to a room of nodding heads.

In place of an afternoon plenary presentation, conference-goers engaged in topic-focused networking during 20-minute roundtable sessions. The small-group format prompted a lively exchange of ideas on product-data management, predictive analytics, connecting legacy machines and a host of other issues facing this crowd.

Harbor Research Consultant Harry Pascarella delivered the final presentation of the day, addressing the importance of ecosystem design in the age of digital and smart systems. “Relationships will get closer as systems get more complex,” he noted.

Finally, before the networking cocktail hour, the 2018 class of The Smart Industry 50 were honored. Professionals from disparate fields, with diverse titles and backgrounds, were celebrated by their peers as they joined this elite collection of digital-transformation pioneers.